Last week, the front page of the Washington Post promised a tantalising change in the American culture wars: "Some abortion foes shifting focus from ban to reduction". The article described a rift in the anti-abortion or pro-life movement, between those who would all but concede full-out legislative defeat in this nearly 40-year touchstone of American divisiveness, and those who vow to press on until every abortion is illegal in America. The Wall Street Journal ran a similar story a week before titled "Abortion foes' dilemma: confront or cooperate?". The article announced that conservatives "fear their cause has lost its urgency as a defining issue for many voters of faith, replaced by opposition to gay marriage".

Both pieces raise a question batted about in conservative circles since November 4: How can any further movement toward banning abortion in America take place, now that a pro-choice president is about to take office? And what to do now that abortion no longer motivates the far right in the way it once did? What if ending abortion meant that instead of seeking to make the practice illegal – which has not reduced the number of abortions so much as increased the number of abortion-related deaths in places like Uganda and elsewhere – it meant helping to prevent pregnancy or, at the very least, the primary reasons a woman seeks to terminate a pregnancy? It seems so radical! So intuitive! So humane! So … practical.

A good part of the newfound sobriety on the part of the right comes from their election day defeats. On November 4, three major anti-abortion ballot initiatives failed at the state level. In Colorado the so-called "personhood amendment" was defeated. In California, home of the infamous Proposition 8 and an ignominious anti-gay marriage backlash, a parental notification law was roundly rejected. And perhaps most impressively in South Dakota, Measure 11, which would have banned abortion except in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother, failed as well. South Dakota's proposal was a retread of a ballot initiative that lost two years ago. Despite adding a clause for rape or health, it was still incredibly restrictive. A woman had to identify her assailant and DNA testing had to prove that the foetus was the product of that assault. Similarly, a woman whose health was in jeopardy had to prove she would go into organ failure if she proceeded with the pregnancy. The anti-abortion activists overstepped their lines, again.

For years pro-choice activists have argued that the majority of Americans believed in Bill Clinton's old mantra about abortion – that it should be safe, legal and rare. These current electoral setbacks seem to prove that point.

On the website of the Christian Broadcasting Network, guest blogger Paul Strand mourned John McCain's loss the day after the election as well as massive defeat of the anti-abortion initiatives. "You have to consider if the efforts to outlaw abortion or to limit it legally are just not going to succeed," he wrote:

Even if they could pass on the ballot or in legislatures, Obama is likely to nominate the judges and justices who will strike them down without mercy. Maybe it's time to put our time, energy and money into something other than bashing our heads over and over again against the same wall? The other side always says it wants to work with pro-lifers to limit abortions and unwanted pregnancies. Maybe it's time to take them up on the offer and say, "OK, let's do it! We're not going to beat you at the ballot box or in the statehouse or in the courts, so let's do everything we can to work together and end this abortion tragedy."

But Strand is not the only voice speaking on abortion. As Michael Paulson at the Boston Globe reported at the end of October, the "US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a direct and detailed response to critics, rejecting the strategy of abandoning legislative efforts in favour of behavioural change. 'The Catholic community is second to no one in providing and advocating for support for women and families facing problems during pregnancy,' the bishops said. 'These efforts, however, are not an adequate or complete response to the injustice of Roe versus Wade.'"

Paulson went on to quote one of America's most conservative bishops, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, who boldly stated: "People who claim that the abortion struggle is lost as a matter of law, or that supporting an outspoken defender of legal abortion is somehow pro-life, are not just wrong; they're betraying the witness of every person who continues the work of defending the unborn child".

Yet, their leaders aside, the majority of Catholics voted for Obama. A slim margin of weekly mass-goers went for McCain, but the majority of identified Catholics voted for the Democrat.

There are two major issues in this new chapter of the abortion wars. One is the connection between poverty and abortion. The second is the battle over contraception.

To tackle the first, and less controversial of the two: The poor are far more likely to seek abortions than the wealthy or the middle class. Progressive Christian conservatives have been aware of this fact for some time. Catholics in Alliance for Common Good released a study (pdf) this month highlighting the connections between poverty and abortion; the poorer the woman, the more likely she is to have an abortion. The group announced that "effective and appropriate socio-economic policies" would decrease the abortion rate. Twenty-three percent of women abort because they can't afford the child, according to the National Right to Life Committee. In other words, anti-poverty measures would lead more women to continue a pregnancy.

But if only this were a mere economics issue. The truth is that the Bush administration's efforts at abstinence-only education have failed in the US and internationally. Contraception remains a crucial wedge between those on the right and left who would seek to lower abortion rates.

While our abortion rates have steadily declined in recent decades, the Alan Guttmacher Institute released a study last year highlighting the key to pushing those levels even lower. "Our policymakers at the state and federal levels need to understand that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy, so we must redouble our efforts towards prevention, through better access to contraception," Sharon Camp, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, said upon the release of the study.

As Obama said in his third debate: "No one is pro-abortion." What's necessary? Pushing for greater access to healthcare, to reduction in poverty, greater access to contraception and reversing the foolish course of abstinence only training we've had for the last eight years would all go a long way toward lowering the abortion rates and bridging what has been one of the biggest cultural rifts in American society in the last 35 years. As Washington Post columnist - and Catholic writer - EJ Dionne argued last weekend, Obama must address the economy, but "one of his important promises was to end the cultural and religious wars that have disfigured American politics for four decades. A good place to start the healing process: our decades-long conflict over abortion". Yes, we can.